My Learning, My Style

Last week I took a learning style inventory to assess what my top learning styles were. Here were my results:

I have taken a few learning style assessments before so I wasn't surprised to see that my highest was intrapersonal because I am one who likes to reflect on experiences, set goals, and connect my prior learning to new situations. My second highest, linguistic, also made sense because I was an English major in college and I always had a love for how words communicate ideas, give things meaning, creates connections, and tell stories. The one high scoring that surprised me was the interpersonal. This was surprising to me because I tend to lean more toward being introverted. I was unsure how it had risen so much since the last time I had taken an assessment like this. But then I realized that over the course of building my PLN, that I had started to become a connected educator. Over the last two years, I have seen the value of learning with, learning from, and connecting to other educators instead of learning on my own. Through my collaborations with other educators, my need to learn in the context of community grew.

While discussing the outcomes of our learning styles as a class, one of my classmates mentioned that she noticed that she taught her students the most from her learning style. This reminded me of a conversation that I had with a professor in which she told me that many educators teach from their learning style because that is how they feel the most comfortable but it could alienate other students that are not strong in that learning style. As I reflected on my own learning, I realized that a lot of my teaching centers around reflection and writing, which serves my linguistic and intrapersonal students well but there is little instruction that targets naturalistic, musical, and visual-spatial students, which I scored low in. So what does all of this meaning for my teaching? That I need to step out of my comfort zone and remember that within a classroom, there are students that come with a variety of learning styles and I need to make sure that their learning styles are represented in my instruction.

Week in Review

News
The impact of digital learning on achievement
Strategies for engaging parents
7 habits of tech-leading principals
Digital learning leads to deeper thinking
GlogsterEDU will be included in the Google Chromebook
Mirroring on a Mac without an iPad
50 k-12 edtech blogs to read
The value of digital writing
2012 K-12 Horizon report on emerging technology
New updates announced by Apple


Tools & Apps
Curate the web using eduClipper
Learn about apps for summer learning
New tools teachers can use in the classroom
Interactive science activities at Wonderville
Tools for creating sharing communities


Technology Integration
QR codes for school communication
Using technology to engage students over the summer
Using the Apple TV in the classroom e-book


Professional Development Opportunities
Professional Development and resources for teaching online from Edutopia
Apply for the next Google Teacher Academy in New York (October 3-4)
Digital Teacher series at The Center for Learning
ISTE Conference in San Diego, CA (June 24-27) or attend remotely
Engaging parents webinar (June 21)

The Power of Perseverance

Image by Don Fulano

My Digital Media Production and Storytelling class is experimenting with the use of the iPad as a media production tool as opposed to solely using it for media consumption. Using it for the first time didn’t go so smoothly: we kept getting kicked off the wireless, the lack of Flash made it difficult to view some sites and it shows your password as you enter it which is a problem when you’re projecting it on a screen to an entire class. Despite all these issues, for the second class we decided to persevere and try it again and surprisingly enough, it went much better the second time around; we even worked out some of the kinks of using an iPad with our classroom management site. 

My take-away from this experience: You can’t learn how well (or terribly) something works unless you use it... and try it again. Our class would have never learned some of the glitches with the iPad for production and presentation if we hadn’t continued using it. We may have more issues and problems with it as the semester progresses but it all serves as a learning experience. Technology frustration is common. Sometimes technology doesn’t work the way we want it to; websites won’t load, applications crash or complicated assembly is required. It is easy to forget that there is a learning curve with technology and if you stick with it, sometimes you’ll be able to add a new tool to your arsenal. On the other hand, you might decide that a certain piece of technology doesn’t fit your objectives but at least you know that you tried.